Baseball programs losing scholarships

We recently read, with dismay, the list of major D1 schools losing baseball scholarships as a result of NCAA violations. Something has been bothering me. What happens to the budgets at those schools? When they sign a full recruiting class in Nov., how do they go back in the spring and tell recruits, "Ooops! Sorry! We don't have the money anymore because we're being punished for previous violations." Or do they take the scholarships away from older players on their way out (boy that would be wrong)? Maybe multiple players across the board lose a portion of their scholarship. I can't imagine an acceptable solution for a player who chose a program in good faith and was told to expect "X" amount of scholarship money. Is anyone out there at a school that is dealing with this situation? No amount of "doing your homework" would prepare you for this!

Regarding Birmingham Southern, they are moving to Division III because it is more in line with their overall philosopies than Division I is.......it really has nothing to do with violations.......and knowing Coach Shoop I am certain that he is communicating quite appropriately with current players and recruits. If I remember correctly, they will compete at the Division III level beginning in the 2007-2008 academic year.

Let me sound off a minute on the BSC sitution. I speak from first hand knowledge because my son just completed his sophomore season. The president and a trustees have been getting the ball rolling on this since January. No coaches, and not even the AD knew anything was even being talked about until a week before the vote. Also, the AD did not know they were going to have a football program in DIII until it was announced at the press conference. There is a right way to make moves such as this and a wrong way; the BSC leaders went about it the wrong way. This college has always had an outstanding reputation of character and academic excellence. As far as I am concerned, I do not have any respect for those that made this choice. I wish Coach Shoop and all of the other coaches and players well, this was not theior fault. My son is going to transfer, along with most of the freshman and sophomore class. I hate this for the athletes that are going through this right now. I wish all of them well in their endeavors.

dad9 - BSC had a fine team this year and I saw them play in person. I think this is a big blow not only for the athletes but for the conference as well. A very sad situation. All the best to your son and his teammates in their future baseball pursuits.

The Division III message boards have been covering this development pretty thoroughly. Lot's of speculation that BSC will apply and become a member of the SCAC. If so, they will be competing in baseball with Trinity(TX), Millsaps and Rhodes. While it is not DI, it isn't a big drop to play that calibre of competition. I know two of the top Trinity players had options for BSC coming out of high school so the recruiting pool may not change all that much.

Does anyone know if this is a NCAA violation? If a player at one D-1 school is asked by his coach to receive instruction from a coach of another D-1 school during the regular season? Is this okay to do? The player drove himself to the other school and missed 3 days of school.

In other news, Birmingham-Southern College announced its intention to drop from Division I to Division III athletics. The Panthers' baseball team finished 33-22 this season and won the Big South Conference's regular-season title. According to reports by The Associated Press, the school plans a four-year transition in which it will remain in Divsion-I. The AP reported that with an enrollment of less than 1,400 students, B-SC is the fourth smallest Division-I athletic program (VMI, Wofford, Centenary) and it will be the first school since 1988 to drop from D-I to D-III. The school, which applied for D-I membership in 1999, will no longer offer scholarships. Current baseball scholarships will be honored as long as the players are in school. However, they will be allowed to transfer without sitting out.

Well, this did happen, but without too much detail, the player was sent to have instruction from another coach on request of his own coach because his own coach felt he was not able to instruct this player properly. Some of us were just curious ourselves if this was a normal practice or has anyone ever heard of such a thing. Thank you

Our son is kind of caught up in the D1 loss-of-scholarships maelstrom.

He was a late recruit (just over the course of the last month or so) and, according to the Head Coach and Recruiting Coach, they found out the morning we were driving there to visit that they weren't going to have the $ they were planning to offer my son after all because of one of these situations.

In our case, son has other options he can consider, and hadn't signed there yet. But the rest of the team and other new recruits for next year who HAVE signed are in bad place, I imagine.

In case you never got the answer to the question you asked about the scholarship loss. Apparently someone decided to change the theme of the thread. The loss of scholarships can ofcourse be dealt with anyway the school sees fit. However, aa KTcosmos says happened to his/her son, it should (honorably) come from money for new recruits.

It would be a sad indictment to reduce a players scholarship who was in good standing with the school and the team -- but in cut throat college baseball I wouldn't put it past them.